


Is There in Truth No Beauty?:  In Your Dreams

by Cheree_Cargill



Series: Glimpses of a Life [67]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Episode: s03e05 Is There in Truth No Beauty?, Gen, Insanity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 20:32:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15692859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheree_Cargill/pseuds/Cheree_Cargill
Summary: Spock has accidentally seen Kollos without his visor and it drives him insane.  Then he learns what the Medusans really are.





	Is There in Truth No Beauty?:  In Your Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: The Star Trek characters are the property of Paramount Studios, Inc. The story contents are the creation and property of Cheree Cargill and is copyright (c) 2018 by Cheree Cargill. This story is Rated PG.

_Stardate:_ _5631._ _5._ _First Officer Spock recording._

I am insane.

I have seen Kollos with my naked eyes and it is too much even for my disciplined brain. The madness, the emotions, the sensory overload have overwhelmed me.

Hands reach for me on the bridge. I fight their seeking grasp. I search for escape but I am surrounded by those trying to prevent my escape. _They come in your dreams! They suffocate in your dreams!_ They are suffocating me! I lash out in panic. And then a blinding light and the kick of an electrical storm knock me senseless.

I can feel myself being carried by those clutching hands, carried into what hell? My brain recognizes the stench of sick bay and I know I have to get away. I explode into motion, fighting with all my might. My mind is being taken away from me! The demons are attempting to press me against a bed. If they succeed, I will never be sane again. The madness overtakes me utterly as I lurch toward the doorway to freedom! My senses shatter!

Light floods my eyes until they burst into flame and melt. My ear drums explode with the sound of my own screams until I can hear nothing but the pounding of the blood in my veins, now runaway and bursting. My skin crawls with ants and I rip my skin with my broken fingernails, rolling on the floor and tearing at my clothing to rid myself of the torment. My nose is packed with the scents of spice and lava and sweat. My tongue writhes with all manner of tastes, the sweet of too-ripe fruit, the salt of Vulcan seas, fiery peppercorns crushed against my teeth, bitterness and sour bile. My gums bleed and I taste the copper of my biological essence. I want to tear my tongue from my mouth to rid myself of it.

I can't stand it! I have to run and run to get away! But iron hands hold me down, keep me pinned in my torment! I try to burst through the bonds but they are too strong. Voices yammer at me. Cold fingers struggle to press my shoulders into the steel plates of the deck. Demons sit on my flailing legs and heaving torso and thrashing arms. And then acid liquid is pressed against the bulging veins in my neck and the world goes black. I sink and sink into the bottomless depths of my mind, never to resurface.

I am dead.

* * *

I float in darkness, cut through by colors and music and angels. Not angels exactly, but beautiful beings that surround me and support me. Am I dead? Is this the All? It is beautiful. I laugh and shed the cocoon that kept me imprisoned, molting my old body as if shedding a worn out skin. It is no longer needed.

I dance with the angels and discover that this is Kollos, the primary entity that encompasses the aggregate of beings that make up the One. _Am I dead?_ I ask again.

 _No, my child_ , he tells me. _But you are with us now and may stay if you wish. We welcome all who seek us._

 _No more pain?_ I ask. _No sadness and loneliness and keeping myself from hurt?_

_No more, my son. We welcomed Marvick to us when he could not bear life any longer and we welcome you._

_Am I dreaming then?_

_You may call it that, but we would wish to show you true wakefulness._

And suddenly my mind, my consciousness, expand to encompass the universe. Not the part of the physical galaxy that I had visited, but all space, all time, all experience. I soar through expanding novae. I dive into turquoise green seas, swimming with diamond creatures that glitter and spark with light. I float through opalescent clouds with winged beings that shimmer like gossamer. I spin in the spiraling disks of vast whirlpools of stars. I am with the All. I _am_ All.

 _I want to stay with you!_ I express to Kollos. _Miranda was right! You are too beautiful to bear!_

 _Then stay, my child,_ Kollos tells me. _Come, be part of our whole._

//Spock!//

I suddenly feel another presence, jarring in its hard corporality. I try to ignore it.

//Spock!// it insists again. //You must come back to us! You cannot go with Kollos! That is not your destiny.//

It is Miranda, in my mind, seeking me in the depths of my psyche. I realize that my body still lives and she is searching to find me.

I turn my face back to Kollos but he is moving away from me, or perhaps it is I that move away from him, from the beauty and peace of the whole he represents.

I must awaken from my dream world, I realize with sadness, and seek to find the link with her mind. I realize as I rise back to air and sound and the solidity of my body that her fingers are on my face, on my psi points. With an effort, I lift my arms from their resting place on the sick bay bed and my fingertips find the smooth warm flesh of her face, and I meld my mind to hers.

It is devastatingly hard. Slowly she draws me back out of my dream, back to the real world. _Kollos needs you now_ , I tell her. _He awaits the joining with you. You and he must become One._

Sadness wracks me, but at least I have experienced what I could never have. She will go with him to his home world and share with him what I could not. I awaken at last and our meld dissolves. We have both evolved into new creatures.

I am alive.

THE END

 


End file.
